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README.md

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+# ghcup
+
+A rewrite of ghcup in haskell.
+
+## TODO
+
+* create static ghcup binaries
+    * adjust url in GHCupDownloads
+* add print-system-reqs command
+
+## Motivation
+
+Maintenance problems:
+
+* platform incompatibilities regularly causing breaking bugs:
+	* [Mktemp not working properly on macOS](https://gitlab.haskell.org/haskell/ghcup/issues/130)
+	* [ln: illegal option -- T on macOS Catalina](https://gitlab.haskell.org/haskell/ghcup/issues/123)
+	* [Wrong tar flag on darwin](https://gitlab.haskell.org/haskell/ghcup/issues/119))
+* refactoring being difficult due to POSIX sh
+
+Benefits of a rewrite:
+
+* Features such as installing [release candidates](https://gitlab.haskell.org/haskell/ghcup/issues/94) or [HEAD builds](https://gitlab.haskell.org/haskell/ghcup/issues/65) can be more conveniently implemented in a rewrite
+* Refactoring will be easier
+* Better tool support (such as linting the downloads file)
+* saner downloads file format (such as JSON)
+
+Downsides:
+
+* building static binaries for all platforms (and possibly causing SSL/DNS problems)
+* still bootstrapping those binaries via a POSIX sh script
+
+## Goals
+
+* Correct low-level code
+* Good exception handling
+* Cleaner user interface